About the book

Some organizations are able to survive and thrive through times of uncertainty while others stumble and fall at the first sign of trouble. What differentiates resilient organizations from those that are not? Do we need to wait until a crisis strikes to see how resilient an organization is, or can we diagnose resilience in advance of a crisis? Resilient Organizations draws on primary research to reveal the answers to these questions and provide practical ideas and actions to make your own organization more resilient.

Organizational resilience is not just about minimizing and managing risk exposure; it is about creating organizations with the agility to adapt to unexpected challenges and the capacity to seize opportunity out of adversity. Dr Erica Seville, founder of the Resilient Organizations research programme, provides readers with the essential knowledge required to enable organizations to thrive in a world of change and uncertainty, where resilience is an increasingly important strategic capacity. Drawing on a decade of research, her team have identified 13 indicators to diagnose an organization's resilience. Resilient Organizations draws out the top five ingredients and shows how organization resilience is a capability that can and must be proactively fostered and maintained over time.

Using case studies, diagnostic tools and key actions and initiatives to develop and maintain organizational resilience, Resilient Organizationsis essential reading for everyone tasked with developing strong organizations that can survive and thrive in crisis and change - from risk, resilience and business continuity professionals to leadership and management teams.

Related Titles

£29.99

£39.99

Reviews

An excellent read on a key global topic that explores all the critical ingredients in one easy-to-digest book. Erica Seville should be congratulated on making such a major contribution to the vital concept of resilient organizations.Peter Power, Chairman, World Conference on Disaster Management, and MD, Visor Consultants (UK)

Erica Seville has unlocked the code on resilience. From natural disasters to market turbulence, she explains how any organization can learn to cope with disruption.Debbie van Opstal, Executive Director, US Resilience Project

This new book is impressive. Impressive because it shows how years of quality academic research can be turned into very useful, actionable knowledge that can impact and benefit organizations and in turn society.Eve Coles, Visiting Research Fellow, UK Cabinet Office EPC, Editor, Emergency Management Review, and Founder Member, Future City and Community Resilience Network

Erica Seville's Resilient Organizationsis an extremely readable and practical distillation of the work done over the last decade by Resilient Organizations. Not a dry summary of research, the book is a 'how-to' manual to help organizations become more resilient, peppered with examples to help understanding.John Plodinec, Community and Regional Resilience Institute

Not just a summary of the issues but a real how toanticipate and act to avoid where it is possible and to recover in the most business/socially effective ways.James B Porter, Jr, Cheif Engineer and Vice President Engineering and Operations, DuPont (retired)

In 2009, in my role as co-leader of the University of Canterbury's emergency preparedness programme, when we needed to step our progress up a gear, we turned to Erica to assist us. From that point on she became both an ardent supporter and trusted confidant and when the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes devastated the city, Erica became a key member of our operations centre team. She has not only undertaken extensive research on the subjects contained in this book, she has lived and breathed their reality. I will be both using and widely sharing the insights Erica provides and this book will have pride of place on my bookshelf.Chris Hawker, Regional Manager and Group Controller, Emergency Management Otago

This book presents a comprehensive and practical road map to building a resilient organization that can survive and thrive in a world which is volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous.David Parsons, Adjunct Associate Professor, Queensland University of Technology - Centre for Emergency and Disaster Management, Australia

An outstanding guide to how to build deep resilience in real-world organizations. The chapter on Social Capital is really useful. I only wish it had been published before the Canterbury earthquakes started.Roger Sutton, former Chief Executive, Canterbury Earthquake Advisory Group (REAG), Chair, BCI Australasia 2020 Group

I really enjoyed Resilient Organizations. I found it practical and easy to read, punctuated with real-life, unsanitized stores that are relevant and compelling. It struck me that four of the five most important elements of resilient organizations are all about people. Leadership, staff engagement, 3am friends and learning and innovation are fundamentally about human behaviour. This is refreshing. In the past, resilience has tended to be the domain of engineers and accountants. While those aspects are important, they only exist to support communities where they work, live and play. If the Christchurch experience has taught us anything, it is that people must be at the centre of everything resilient. He tangata. Organizations are fundamentally about people, and Resilient Organizations manages to make this point firmly but yet unobtrusively and compellingly. Great job.Mike Mendonca, Wellington Chief Resilience Officer

There is some hidden advantages to living through 12,000 New Zealand earthquakes in two years after all. Erica's book integrates disaster stories, thoughtful analysis and simple practical steps into an eminently readable book that explains how - and why - resilience is a competitive advantage.Nathaniel Forbes, Singapore

Book Details

Share this page

About the Author

Dr Erica Seville founded and co-leads Resilient Organisations, a public-good research programme with a team of over 35 researchers that seeks to improve the resilience of organizations so they can both survive adversity and thrive in a world of uncertainty. A leading researcher in the field of organizational resilience, Erica has authored over 100 research articles on resilience and is a regular international speaker on the topic. She sits on the Resilience Expert Advisory Group, providing advice and support to the Australian Federal Government on organizational resilience issues, and is also an invited member of the Business Continuity Institute 20/20 think tank. She is an Adjunct Senior Fellow with the Department of Civil and Natural Resources Engineering at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand and has a PhD in risk management.